The claim that the current German dislike of inflation dates back to unique memories of Weimar hyperinflation is dubious

From Germany fact of the day by Tyler Cowen. Cowen points out that Germany has for long periods of time experienced inflation rates above 2% and in some years 6 and 7%.

The claim that the current German dislike of inflation dates back to unique memories of Weimar hyperinflation is dubious. Rightly or wrongly, today’s Germans associate high rates of inflation with wealth transfers away from Germany and toward other nations. More broadly, Germany is a more flexible country than outsiders often think, not always to the better of course.

There is an interesting discussion in the comments section about the historical events and current behaviors and decisions.

Ray Lopez October 18, 2014 at 3:46 am
TC’s claim about history is interesting. How much institutional memory does a country have? Perhaps even if present people don’t remember stuff that happened in the past, can a society function the way it does, due to history that nobody can remember? Sounds metaphysical, but here’s a real-life example. Some sociologists from France or Belgium went to the Congo a while ago, interviewed people, and found nearly none of them remember King Leopold of Belgium and the colonization of the Congo for rubber, at the end of the 19th century, as outlined in the best-seller “King Leopold’s Ghost (1998)” by Adam Hochschild . So a major traumatizing experience in a nation’s history is almost completely forgotten by the people there (most of them ignorant to be sure). Thus how big an impact can this searing event have had on modern inhabitants? Very little some might say, but, like slavery in the USA, perhaps not.

[snip]

Mark Thorson October 18, 2014 at 1:33 pm
I remember hearing one proposed explanation for Kondratieff waves was memory. People who lived through high inflation or a severe recession would be especially guarded about repeating the experience, as would their children. But their grandchildren will have forgotten all about it and repeat the mistakes of their grandparents, leading to a cycle about two generations long.

Wikipedia doesn’t mention this hypothesis in their description. They do say the existence of Kondratieff waves is not accepted by mainstream economists.

As someone points out, it is likely that it is not the memories per se but rather the way those experiences get incorporated into the institutions of the nation and culture.

I think that discussion is quite an interesting one. But I think Cowen's original point is even more interesting.

All my life and in all my studies in economics over the years, there has always been a latent and unquestioned assumption that Germans were 1) highly averse to inflation, 2) Germans prioritized inflation fighting above many other goals in comparison to other countries, and 3) that the source of aversion was the experience of inflation in the Weimar Republic.

Cowen's original point is excellent. This is all great theory and perfectly logical. The only problem is that it doesn't accord with the empirical evidence. If Germans are highly averse to inflation, then you would expect their inflation rates to be very low.

I think we more often than we want to acknowledge, accept logical explanations of history without actually checking the key data that would affirm or refute.

I can think of at least one other example. There is a popular effort in some circles to assert that slavery is the progenitor of negative measured outcomes of African Americans today. It is certainly a logical argument and is attractively simple. The only problem with it, as Thomas Sowell has pointed out, is that it does not appear to accord with the evidence. Sowell has argued, and mustered the data to support his argument, that the trends on many critical socioeconomic variables, African-Americans were on an upward trend through the 1960s: family formation, education attainment, labor force participation rates, income, etc. On a few measures they had already achieved parity with the majority population or were exceeding. Sowell argues that these upward trends are inconsistent with a causal linkage between pre-1860s slavery and post-1960s socioeconomic declines.

Both the Sowell argument and the observation about German inflation rates are a call to always double check assumed facts. Just because the story is logical and reasonable doesn't mean that it is true.